


love is a shadow

by zenstrike



Series: love is a shadow [1]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/F, Mass Effect 1, Romance, a little bit of failed shenko, way too much poetry i overdid it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 07:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11122803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: "Shepard," Ashley calls. "Look at me."Written for Mass Effect Relationship Week: late night confessions





	love is a shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I was super liberal with this prompt and I’m very sorry about it. I also made myself very sad.
> 
> quoted below, besides the plath poem, is ulysses by tennyson and o captain! my captain! by walt whitman, as well as lines from both ashley and kaidan’s me1 love scenes.

_“ Love is a shadow._  
_How you lie and cry after it_  
_Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse._  
  
_All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,_  
_Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,_  
_Echoing, echoing. “ - Elm, Sylvia Plath_

 

"I wanted better. I wanted to be more than I was." She bends over her knees, staring down at her feet for a moment. She doesn't straighten but she lifts her head, her elbows on her knees holding her more or less upright. Keeping her conscious. Shepard smiles, but it's twitchy and doesn't last.

Ashley isn't smiling, sitting in the desk chair that still doesn't entirely feel like Shepard's. She's straight-backed but not rigid, comfortable but not casual. Looking at her, Shepard feels an overwhelming moment of pride and has to look down at her feet again.

"I get that," Ashley says. Shepard doesn't doubt that.

"It feels like I'm taking steps backwards," Shepard continues to the floor. Ashley makes a soft, slightly disgruntled sound. It warms her, inside and out. She's afraid to look up again. "Like Earth is one step around the corner."

"With all due respect," Ashley drawls, and Shepard smiles again. "Earth probably isn't all you remember it being."

Shepard laughs, brief and stuttered.

"Shepard," Ashley calls. "Look at me."

She wrestles with her fear and lifts her head. "Ash," she starts, but can't go further.

Ashley smiles. She leans back in the chair and sighs. "'O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells.'"

"First Tennyson, now Whitman?" Shepard shakes her head, but the smile won't leave her lips. She stands and they look at one another for a moment before Shepard says softly: "You're full of surprises, Williams."

"You don't even know the half of it." The levity vanishes and something hard shifts over Ashley's features, something Shepard is halfway glad to see. "We had to do this, Shepard. You know that. There was no other way."

She thinks about crossing the narrow cabin, about standing in front of Ashley and tracing the lines of her face so she'll never forget this moment. She doesn't, but she imagines it again and again. "I keep trying to remind myself we're doing the right thing." She pauses, but Ashley's eyes won't let her look away again. "I don't know if I believe me yet."

"Then believe me," Ashley counters. "We'll get home again, Shepard. I believe you'll lead us through. And I believe when _you_ finally go home, you'll be glad you did. Lay your ghosts to rest."

"I don't have any ghosts." Her voice sounds flat even to her own ears. "'I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades for ever and forever when I move.'" Her tongue trips over the words that spring up from nowhere, from the memory of a few free moments spent learning and understanding and seeking out common ground.

"'How dull it is to pause, to make an end.'" Ashley shakes her head. "Shepard--"

"Yes?" Overeager, hopeful, remoresful.

"Shepard--"

A harsh hissing as the door slides open.

They don't look away from each other until Ashley jerks her head and looks away first.

"Commander," Kaidan greets when Shepard turns to him.

"I'm not sure you should call me that anymore," Shepard says, uncomfortable and burning in her uniform, ashamed and confused.

"If I didn't think you were doing the right thing, Commander, I wouldn't be here." He shifts uncomfortably but doesn't look away. "Shit will really hit the fan when we get to Ilos."

Shepard doesn't bother trying to sugarcoat it. They're a good crew. They've confronted the worst and gotten through it. They'll take this challenge and she has faith they'll all get through it.

"Never again," Ashley promises from the chair.

Shepard nods.

"If things don't go well, I want you to know--" He pauses. "It's been a pleasure serving under you, Commander."

Shepard blinks. Her stomach flips over. She looks away. "I appreciate you saying that Kaidan," she finally says. "Try to get some rest while you can."

"Shit, ma'am," Ashley mutters. "With all due respect, I mean."

It's a bad joke, Shepard wants to scream. Don't make it in front of him, Shepard wants to beg.

"Only if you do, ma'am," Kaidan says, but he turns to leave all the same. "See you soon, Shepard."

"Yeah," Shepard replies, her mouth dry. She raises a hand in farewell and the door hisses shut behind him.

Missed opportunities hang in the air.

They are quiet for a time. Shepard doesn't move from her spot, nor look away from the crease in the paneling of the wall she's currently interested in.

Ashley whistles. "Virmire," she says.

"Virmire," Shepard agrees, and turns to face her. "Ash, I'm sorry."

Ashley blinks up at her. "I had to fight my whole life to get what I want. That meant burying things. A lot of things. Shepard--that's what you have to do."

"Bury things?" There's a twang in her chest that makes her unsteady on her feet. Shepard turns and makes deliberate, slow steps back to the bed. She drops onto it, leans back on her hands, and looks over Ashley with a desperation that tells her her hallucination is about to end.

"Yeah. And fight."

She sighs, long and deep, and feels her lungs in her chest and air slip out her nose. She feels that her body is present, and sore, and tired. "I've been fighting for a while already, Ash."

"So what?" Ash waves a hand dismissively. "Doesn't mean you stop. Talking like this--you don't sound like my Commander."

"Maybe I'm tired of leading you."

"Then I'll lead."

Ashley stands and moves in front of her. Shepard looks up at her, and grief begins to overwhelm her.

"Stay tonight," she asks, and manages not to beg.

"No way, ma'am," Ashley replies, all softness and regret but determination, too, that sets Shepard's skin on fire. "I'm not going to be your madness."

"Alright," Shepard acquiesces. She straightens enough to raise a hand in a stilted wave. "Goodbye, Ashley."

She blinks, and she is alone.

Shepard flops onto her side. She stares across the cabin, then pulls her legs onto the bed and rolls onto her other side. She closes her eyes, intent on sleeping, and fails.

She tells herself she can cry. She doesn't. She tells herself she can grieve. And she does.

She stands up and leaves to check on her crew.

**Author's Note:**

> i've had thoughts about this idea before, about an ongoing hallucination spurred by grief, that doesn't break until me3. but.


End file.
